Davis blames Abbott for school funding cuts

Sen. Wendy Davis argued in Houston on Monday that the central problem plaguing Texas schools was insufficient funding, a shortfall that her opponent could live with or even exacerbate.

On the first day of school for many Houston children, Davis used an elementary school to as a backdrop as she described Texas schools as beleaguered by cuts pushed by “insiders in Austin,” like Attorney General Greg Abbott, her Republican opponent. The cuts have imperiled the “Texas promise,” she said.

“While these promises are real and true, those in power have left our schools underfunded, understaffed, underrepresented and undervalued,” said Davis. “These are investments, but they are worthwhile investments.”

Davis unveiled little new that would explain how she would shore up funding woes that have led to teacher layoffs. She zeroed in on education as fundamentally a resource problem that needed to be addressed by the next governor. Early childhood education, teacher recruitment and teacher retention all could be improved if the state boosted school system coffers, she said.

Davis read to some children at Cummings Elementary School and caught the attention of other students, whom teachers had to hush and whisk away from the television cameras that caught their gaze. Davis criticized the testing demands that these children would encounter, pillorying standardized testing as a distraction from teachers’ core purpose.

“If Mr. Abbott wants a fight, he can fight the standardized tests that are getting in the way of teaching instead of calling for 4-year-olds to take tests when they can barely write their own names,” she said.